


The Weird Ones

by blueturtle459



Series: Light a Fire [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, I know no cannon, Lots of shapeshifting, POV Outsider, The Breaking Point, What's cannon, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueturtle459/pseuds/blueturtle459
Summary: Yellow Pearl’s not really sure what amethysts do, but she does know something’s up with this one.
Relationships: Pearl & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Pearl & Yellow Diamond's Pearl (Steven Universe)
Series: Light a Fire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721860
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	The Weird Ones

**Author's Note:**

> So I was writing drabbles, and then this one kind of got out of hand. Fair warning, Pearl's not the most in-character for this one.

The amethyst is unusual. They slip into more formal language, are more stiff, walk with uncharacteristic grace, and overall are a confusing mesh of traits that amethysts aren’t. Amethysts are simple; they’re big, purple, and they fight stuff. That will be all. This amethyst does all of the above, then more.

She and the amethyst are peers, of a sort. She stands outside Yellow Diamond’s chambers and waits. Then waits. Then waits more. The amethyst does the same, but she’s been here longer, so she knows when Yellow Diamond will come out, and the purple brute doesn’t.

The amethyst grunts. She hmmms back. She grunts again. She hmmmss again. This escalates, before she falls silent, and Yellow Diamond rockets out of her chamber, seemingly enraged by some string of attacks on homeworld’s higher ups.

The amethyst, unbeknownst to anyone but Yellow Pearl, smirks.

It continues like that. Pearl and amethyst, amethyst and Pearl. They go long stretches without seeing each other, and long stretches with each other, too. They’re also alone, most of the time. Yellow Diamond is getting more and more angry all the time, and it’s looking like there are threats around every corner.

Yellow Pearl, for the first time in her (very short, her Diamond shattered the last one only a few years ago) existence, is feeling terrified.

The amethyst starts it. “You know, I’m useful because I can fight.” _A real amethyst would say ‘cause, don’t act like you’re some kind of fighter when you’re so soft._

She nods. “And?” She half-sneers, but her gem’s not really in it.

“Just a thought, but you could be too.” Pearl snorts. Both of them giggle a bit, though Yellow Pearl starts it and the amethyst is kind of awkward about it.

They fall silent.

“Teach me.”

She doesn’t need an explanation.

“Okay.”

Yellow Pearl’s not really sure what amethysts do, but she does know something’s up with this one. 

The first thing the amethyst does is morph into a pearl, just like her. Well. An attempt at just like her. But the hair slumps over her forehead, and her socks are too short by a mile, and she left out the shoulder mesh. She’s a milky shade of purple that doesn’t quite match her old skin tone, but Yellow Pearl doesn’t think much of it. She didn’t even know gems could do that sort of thing. When she asks, the amethyst smirks, and puts a finger to her lips. 

Pearl feels a bit giddy, a bit rebellious, cheeky.

The pearl-amethyst hands her a sword, while she carries a spear with a twisting tip.

They start.

One day, the amethyst disappears, no explanation given. Yellow Pearl feels disappointed, until she spots an era 1 Peridot with the same quirks. She’s here to teach her about the new tech homeworld has begun using, a holographic display with pictures and typing.

If nothing else, the Peridot is competent. She seems to know everything about the system, though unusually, her hair drapes over her forehead. Peridot’s are mainly in her Diamond’s group, but this Peridot almost seems blue-like, except for her white-like mannerisms. In short, she’s weird, in the exact same way the amethyst was.

She wonders where that amethyst went, sometimes. Shattered? Reset? Woven into the walls, fallen in battle? Sent off to Earth, which every gem secretly knows is a failure so big it took down a Diamond?

It doesn’t, shouldn’t matter. She’s been getting caught up in nonsense, really. She’s a Diamond’s pearl, and she should act like it. She stops practicing.

The Peridot says she’ll be here around three years, to see if the holographic display works as well as she hopes, and if it needs adjustments. She’s… weird, to say the least.

She’s got a thousand graphs, and large amounts of equations, and what looks like a bunch of unrelated blueprints, but most of all she’s got information, clips, and soundbites that Pearl’s never heard before. Battle, more battle, more battle on Earth, elsewhere, far across their galaxy and beyond.

From here, the Diamond’s regime is looking… not great. There are a lot of uprisings, not successful ones, but Peridot tells her the damages to the Diamonds, in fairly convincing distressed tones (Yellow Pearl doesn’t know what to think about Peridot, besides that she’s most likely a traitor. Somewhere along the line, Pearl learned to like traitors). Yellow thinks the Diamonds are pretty harsh, and might lose someday, what with the growing weakness of the empire. 

It is at this point that Yellow Pearl decides to join a rebellion, someday. As if she can hear that thought, the Peridot grins at her from across the hallway, from behind her many screens.

Pearl didn’t know Peridots could grin, before now. She thought they were deep-space cold, but Pearl doesn’t know a lot of things, really.

Peridot disappears, too, three years later, as promised. In her place is a new Pearl, supposedly being trained for White Diamond after Blue failed to do the job right. It’s a good cover, Pearl thinks. She certainly acts like a white pearl.

This Pearl is ramrod straight, even more proper than Yellow Pearl is, except when she’s not. Sometimes she falls into grace and a kind of movement Pearl’s shouldn’t be capable of, that screams _power and freedom,_ the kind of grace reserved for Diamonds only.

That Pearl, body screaming _I’m not yours,_ is walking up to the back of Yellow Diamond’s chair, the holographic displays subtly hiding her. That Pearl’s silently drilling a whole behind her gem. That Pearl’s taking out a rectangular prism, with a spike that smashes out the side right into Yellow Diamond’s gem—

Yellow Diamond screams, and screams, and pops out of existence, forever.

That gem (she can’t be a Pearl) shattered Yellow Diamond.

Yellow Pearl watches on. She doesn’t feel much of anything, actually, other than maybe fear. Fear for the deranged grin on that Pearl’s face (doesn’t belong doesn’t belong doesn’t belong) and the way she laughs and cries and smiles, before starting to grab the pieces like trophies and shove them into her gem. Yellow Pearl wants to run away, she wants to follow, she wants to mourn, she wants to celebrate. She’s a confusing mesh of feelings that war within her like an imploding star.

It doesn’t really matter, because the Pearl grabs her, shoves a sword in her hand, and starts running with her. They sprint towards a homeworld ship, and she takes down a quartz while the other pearl takes on nine at once and everything’s happening so quickly—

They blast off, before she hears a poof, and everything is black.

“What is it that Rose says to her little humans?” The Pearl grins politely, viciously, victoriously at her. She’s slouched over a crate of something or other, leaning on an ornate, pink sword. “Something like, ‘I hadn’t planned on finding you quite this entertaining?’”

“Entertaining?”

“Fun, really. I doubt the Diamonds ever let you have any of it, but really, try it out some time.” She pauses, and seems to refocus. “Anyway, Pearls make the best infiltrators. You could be great, you know.”

She hesitates. She wants to, really, she does, but she’s just so afraid, so much so that it drowns out the rest.

“Pearls are the best, since we’re the best shapeshifters, but I’m the only Pearl so far.” She leans forward a little and smirks. “I’m getting a little lonely, after all.”

She starts shaking. It feels like she’s about to poof, or explode, or maybe get smashed.

Something panicked enters the other Pearl’s eyes. “Shit. _Look at me._ Your programming hasn’t been broken yet, Rose can fix that, so you can’t think about the Diamonds hostilely yet. _Dear, calm down, look at me._ ”

“Dear?”

“Human thing I picked up. Pretty neat, since you don’t have a name, right?”

“Name?”

“Like Pearl, but when I left Earth I dropped the name Pearl. Too stuffy, really, though you can try it out if you want. By the way, I go by Renegade nowadays, though barely anyone uses it yet.”

“Renegade?”

She nods. “I couldn’t stand being connected to any of the Diamonds, and I couldn’t stand being around the rebellion for a while, either. Rose found out, and sent me off to kill Yellow Diamond. Kind of. Well. Something like that. Pretty rebellious, huh?”

“Who’s Rose?”

“Our leader. She’s a pacifist, but well. I’m not. She likes me enough to let me shatter the gems she refuses to.”

“... You were far more eloquent as Peridot.”

“Clever, clever. I was, but well. You can only be around Quartzes so long. You still haven’t answered the question. Don’t think about the Diamonds, just, do you want to join the rebellion?”

She thinks about Amethyst, Peridot, and Pearl, and this amalgamation of all of them. Renegade. Who’s free, so free she can even defy her leader, so free she can decide everything herself. There’s only one answer, really.

“Of course.”

Renegade grins her vicious grin. She hmms, and they giggle, and she feels happy, and elated, and free all at once, and still a bit afraid, but so what? She’s never felt any of this before, it’s all so new and wonderful and she thinks she knows what entertainment is, now.

Renegade’s entertaining. Maybe she’ll be, one day, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of want to write more of this AU, so that might be coming up. Maybe something from Pearl's perspective, who knows. 
> 
> I originally had this idea to separate Pearl from Rose early on since it would be great for her emotional health, but it also makes a lot of sense for Pearl to be an infiltrator. After all, Pearl convincingly faked the death of Pink Diamond, fully shapeshifted, including colors (which no other gems have been able to do except maybe Steven). This lead me to think that Pearls and maybe Diamonds are the only gems that can shapeshift in color, which made this AU the way it is.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
